Wednesday, April 4, 2012

My Response to Richard Gwyn Responding to David Frum about Canada being the best-governed country in the world thanks to Harper.

Canada is indeed in
excellent shape these days... But
none of this has anything to do with the budget or with the Harper
government’s financial management since it gained power in 2006,
nor with Harper himself.

Instead, the causes of our
contemporary complacency are threefold:

Mostly,
it’s because we’re enjoying a commodities boom (as are Australia
and Brazil), thanks to the almost limitless demand created by the
headlong economic growth in China, India and elsewhere. Even an
ineptly governed economy could do well, so long as it has spare rocks
and logs and oil,

Canadian “staples” theory of
economic development: allowing the Crown's privileged classes to
extract environmental resources for global consumption and personal
gain. Wealth “trickles” down to the citizenry, where it is taxed
before it can be put to good use. Result: an elite class of Canadians
parasitically living off everyone else in Canada.

• Our national finances
were put into good shape before Harper gained office. This was done
in the 1990s by then finance minister Paul Martin. Keeping our
financial books in order has now become part of Canadians’ national
identity, sort of in the way our health-care system has long been,
but may not be that much longer.

National identity. An eerie display of unconscious aggression,
where propaganda-making masquerades as public relations to sell the concept of
Canada.

• Lastly, we owe a lot
to our famously “boring” banks. In fact, they owe a lot back to
the rest of us: In exchange for quite strict regulation they enjoy
protection from foreign competition and permission to operate as —
effectively — a cartel. As is all that really matters, they never
go bankrupt.

I've bolded this one because I've
never seen anything resembling the truth in the Toronto Star since...
ever. Although wrapped in doublespeak, what Gwyn is effectively
saying is that as long as the Canadian banking cartel (and with it,
the entire political and merchant establishment) are protected from
unwanted outside influence via Crown violence – they will never go
bankrupt. Technically, he's right. They willnever
go bankrupt. Individual Canadianson the other hand...

The consequence of all of this is that all of our stars are now in a
row, pretty much as they were for us after World War II when the Cold
War created a huge demand for our resources at the same time that
many of our competitors had been left bomb-shattered and bankrupt.

Toss
out a few variables and ta da! A thoughtful comparison! Ignore
the reality before your eyes:
things are different now. Everyone and everything is heavily
indebted. The only people making the
big bucks on selling off Canada's resources are the same ones
who are also
profiteering on our indebtedness. This
isn't 1945, Gwyn
– It's 1984.

Ontario’s circumstances are
radically different. As a manufacturing economy, it has to, in
effect, compete with China, which is a far tougher challenge than
trying to sell rocks and logs and oil to China.

For a 'manufacturing economy', Ontario needs to lose a few
thousands of economic regulations. Also, stop using paper money.
That'll allow Ontario entrepreneurs to compete with Chinese labour.

Add to this the burden on Ontario
manufacturers of the high-priced dollar caused by the commodities
boom and the revenues lost to its government because of equalization
payments going from Ontario to provinces with lower unemployment
rates (Manitoba’s rate is 50 per cent lower).

Jesus, Manitoba is worse than Ontario? Fuck, where the hell are
our equalization payments coming from then? Newfoundland!? Forget the
“high-priced dollar” shenanigans, Gwyn you need to read a book by
a woman who lived in Toronto from 1968 – 2006 and has a day (May 4) dedicated to her. Her name is Jane Jacobs and the book is The Economy of Cities. She's not an Austrian;
she's not an anarchist. She's actually
pretty left-wing and I recommend her work for everybody.

The issue isn’t Ontario’s
troubles, some self-generated. It’s the lousy governance generated
by a quite unnecessary and mutually damaging squabble between a
national government that’s having it easy and a major province
that’s having it hard.

It is lousy governance! Since all governance is lousy we might as
well throw out the whole concept and live in anarchy (seriously).

On reflection, there’s no doubt
whatever the Norwegians do things better, including — this by an
ever-widening margin now — the way they manage their oil industry.

Another
Jane Jacobs reference! The Question of Separatism, the first three chapters, they're
all about economic development in Canada and Norway. Go read it! Quick! It's probably at your
local library*